Baku Revisited

...a lot cleaner, tons of new buildings, and the roads are in far better shape than my last visit. But not nearly the time to walk around that I had previously, complicated further by my nasty cold and weather that didn't always cooperate for roaming around. Still, I managed a day of photos, some in the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the "Walled City of Baku" and an hour or so along Martyrs' Lane (Şəhidlər Xiyabanı). Here are a few.

Flame Towers (At Night They Light Up Like Flames) - Baku, Azerbaijan

The Old City of Baku (İçəri Şəhər) - Azerbaijan

Maiden Tower - Old City, Baku

Catapult Along the Walls of the Old City - Baku

Forgetting Stuff

I'm not sure I actually ever knew though...
On a trip to Baku, Azerbaijan 5 years or so ago, I took a number of photos of sculptures and things that caught my eye around town. For the most part all these years later I have no idea who or what they are. I learned my lesson on some later trips. In Sofia and Zagreb, for instance, I wrote things down at night in the hotel room. I'm not sure I had a good enough guide book or other information handy in Baku. It was still the early days of my digital camera too.

One of Many Looking Down Upon Those Passing By - Baku, Azerbaijan





Some Guy & A Sculpture of Struggle - Baku, Azerbaijan





Another Guy, Probably Important - Baku, Azerbaijan






He was Important Too - Baku, Azerbaijan




Hah! I know one, Haydar Aliyev, according to wikipedia, the 3rd President of Azerbaijan

Heydər Əlirza oğlu Əliyev - Baku, Azerbaijan

The Last for now ...

National Bank of Azerbaijan - Baku (Image 1446 taken 30 September 2006)

Cemeteries

If you've looked through the photos in my blog, it is probably obvious that cemeteries are my favorite or at least most consistent photographic subject. Cemeteries say something about the respective culture of the area of the world and the people buried there...what it is they say or what it means I'm not sure...but the brightly colored above ground crypts in Guatemala's central highlands tell a totally different story than the neat rows of white obelisks in the modern Muslim cemeteries of Sarajevo. Here are a few photos of a Muslim cemetery outside of Baku.







The cemetery is in a pretty stark, basically desert environment and the sunlight when I was there was a bit harsh too. However, the headstones and graves were incredible in their variety. I'll post some contrasting photos of the Muslim headstones from the mid 90's war here in Sarajevo later.

A Difficult Subject (Photographically Speaking)

Sometimes I see something that is really cool, or a beautiful scene and I take some photographs. When I get a chance to go back and look at the photos, something is missing or they just don't look that great.

I first learned this when I got a wide angle lens back in the early 90s. I took many boring "grand vistas" and eventually it taught me a huge amount about composition, especially foreground/background, leading lines and "rule of thirds". As I got better at it, the 24mm lens became my favorite (on a normal 35mm SLR). I learned about using longer lenses for subject isolation and open apertures for selective focus a while later, but generally I shot with either the 24mm or a 90mm lens (which I did tend to use wide open).

It wasn't until relatively recently that I started using my longer lenses with any regularity and now my 70-200 2.8L with image stabilization is my clear favorite. I frequently use it to isolate a subject, by focus and by zooming "close" to select an interesting aspect of the overall scene. Sometimes resulting photo still comes back missing something, or maybe just a bit boring.

As I've been going back through the photos I've taken in the past 8 months organizing, key wording etc. I've also started to realize how many UNESCO World Heritage sites I've been too. Walled City of Baku with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower is the only one in Azerbaijan, and I was there this fall. The Maiden Tower photos I have are basically tourist snapshots, I didn't come up with anything interesting or some new perspective, unusually interesting light or anything, and I knew it at the time.

Just a block or so away in the walking area though, there is a neat fountain. I took some photos of it and I thought they would be interesting. I ran across these today and messed with the best in photoshop. Quite frankly, I was disappointed. The photo is too "busy", with the subject of the female sculpture just not standing out enough against the rest of the fountain. What do you think?

Mud Volcanos

Here's some mud volcanos...outside of Baku, Azerbaijan. They aren't hot, you can walk right up to them.

I'm back

still waiting on my computer etc. I have heaps of photos though